Locked Down and Feeling Down? Five Simple Things You Can Do
The lockdowns, the virus, the utter chaos of the last several months have got us all down and have made our lives chaotic and depressing throughout this whole process that we have all gone through since this pandemic first came upon us.
This has been hard for everyone, it has been a process that has been in fact, hard to process.
Whether you have come down with the virus, have lost your job, or just are depressed with the isolation from this entire thing that has all unfolded in this pandemic, this has been hard for everyone and has made life difficult for so many in this country.
Being stuck at home can be depressing for people and can really get them down at a time like this, but there are things you can do to get out of the dark and lonely places in your mind and soul and get back to living, even in the middle of a trying situation like this pandemic is.
Feeling down in the pandemic?
Try out these things and start living again, even in the middle of all this chaos that we are going through.
- Take a Class — Learning is a Good Way to Get Out of Your Head
I have found that my mind tends to wander during this entire pandemic, or at any time I am isolated and that is never a good thing for me or for anyone, at any stage in life.
The best way to get your mind off of a hard situation is to think about other things and what better way to do that than by taking a class or going back to school.
During this pandemic, that is exactly what I did.
I went back to high school and it was the best thing that I could have done during this pandemic. It allowed me to do something that I had been putting off for a long time as well as stay busy at a time when the world basically took a halt and stopped.
I had a lot of time on my hands to take these classes and now I plan to go to college online as this thing is not going away and I still have a ton of time that I need to fill and taking classes serves multiple purposes and is good for me at a time when I need to stay well and continue to learn.
It does not have to be school in the traditional sense, you can take any type of class as long as it is something that you can learn, and we all have things to learn in this life and during a time like this, learning and shifting our focus can be a good thing.
2. Exercise — Get the Blood Flowing
Getting out there and getting in a good workout is very important at anytime, pandemic or not, and becomes especially important at a time like this when we are in the middle of a public health crisis when depression is at a high level and when staying at home and doing nothing can be counterproductive to our mental, emotional, and physical well-being.
People think that just because gyms are closed in many areas and things like basketball courts are not accessible that we cannot exercise, but this is not true at all, not one bit.
We can adapt and change based on our situation and during this pandemic it is especially important that we adapt and find new ways to get our needs met and get out there and live our lives. I firmly believe that getting in some form of physical activity is important for our weight loss and athletic goals as well as a way for us to get out from the isolation and live again.
I have adapted to this by going on safe, socially distanced walks throughout the day as well other types of safe physical activity like walking dogs from the shelter, kickboxing a makeshift kickboxing target in my backyard and using home weights and a stationary bike in my living room.
If you cannot afford weights then you can do pushups and sit-ups, go for runs around the neighborhood, and finding other ways to get a workout in, like that makeshift kickboxing target I mentioned, I use an old mattress and it works just fine.
Physical activity is important. It gets the dopamine and endorphins in our brains going and helps battle the depression and isolation that being self-quarantined at home can do as well as help us to stay in shape and not pack on the pounds that this whole pandemic has been known to do for me and so many others.
3. Help Others — Help a Stranger or a Friend, it Will Help You Both
Helping others is what keeps many of us on the right path and keeps us focused on what is important and during a crisis it can make or break a person and their journey through that crisis.
I have learned over the years that helping others can get me to take the focus off of myself and what I am going through and focus on someone else and what they are experiencing and this is more true than ever during this crisis that our world is going through now.
Help others and your world will change, literally.
If you are feeling locked down and down in the dumps at home during this whole situation, reach out to someone else and you shall see how it will lift your spirits and get you into a new state of mind and you shall experience new feelings and a new reality.
Helping others and being of service is what in essence helps ourselves when times are tough and the best part is that it gets us out of what we are feeling and thinking while also making someone else’s day better and for this, it is a win-win through and through.
I have found that doing this has made the pandemic and the associated stay-at-home orders less painful to endure and have made my days better.
Helping others can be anything from going grocery shopping for an older person who cannot get out to mowing someone’s lawn to simple things like calling someone who may be lonely or being someone’s friend on social media and so on.
There are many ways that we can help others and when we are in the middle of a crisis like this, it helps so much, us and them.
4. Learn to Cook — Make Meals and Make Smiles
Cooking has become one of my favorite activities in this pandemic and is for sure a way that I pass the time now that I cannot do the things that I used to do before this all went down.
I never used to like to cook and now, I love it.
Cooking is fun and I have learned to cook many different types of dishes during this lockdown that we all have been stuck in over the last weeks and months.
Food does make me smile and I like to get creative with the things that I make each and every meal. I like to cook these days and it for sure does get me out of the rut that I tend to get in and the depression that comes so easily these days.
I think that this is a good way to get out of the noise in our heads and to distract ourselves from the negativity of this virus and all that is being reported on it and also, cooking can go with exercise and help us to stay fit and healthy instead of reaching for the bag of chips or the pint of ice cream that while tasty, can not always be good for us.
5. Be Creative — Do Some Writing or Photography and Create Beauty
Another simple thing that we can do to get out of the noise of our head and to feel better while being in lockdown is to create something whether it be to make beautiful art, take cool pictures, or write a meaningful and informative article, creating something is good.
The lockdown can get us down and get us caught up in the problem and doing these things can do the opposite and get us into a more positive space and into solutions rather than problems and this can be a good thing for us when we feel so low at a time like this.
I write a LOT of articles. It is what gets me out of my head and into an activity that helps me focus less on what is going on around me and more on how I can give back to others and to my country and this is always a good thing when I can leave my head.
Writing is therapeutic for me and I have heard others say the same.
I use writing to process things in this life and other people have told me a similar experience. I write when I have issues and I need to get them out of me and on to paper (or a computer screen) and it works, for me. It helps me to get them out and process them in many ways and at a time like this pandemic where things can be overwhelming and dark, it is much needed.
Before the world changed and everything shut down and my world became something different than I knew , I had not been creative in some time and it gave me an opportunity to get back into being creative and this was one of the blessings of this pandemic, a blessing that allowed me to find who I was once again.
There are Positives all around, we Simply Just Need to Look
Our lives are not the same that they once were and they in all honesty may never be again, but we can still find joy and create a life that is valuable and has joy in it and that is what this list is all about.
These are things that we can do to escape the loneliness, fear, and isolation of being trapped at home and things we can do to escape depression and invite joy and health into our lives once again.
Now, do not get me wrong. When I say “Stuck” or “Trapped” at home, I mean that in a different way than you may think. I support these stay-at-home orders that we are all under because I have had this virus and I know that they are needed to protect us as well as protect our communities.
I mean this in a way that it is hard, even when necessary.
This is hard on us all, but we can get through it and maintain our mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health through it all and we can get through this challenging time for us and for our nation and the way to do that is to abide by the rules and then to adapt, adapt in a way where we can get what we need, even if it is in a different way than what we are used to.
We can be well and we can be happy, even in a pandemic!
